The General Clinical Research Center at the University of Alabama in Birmingham is a multidisciplinary facility which is available to faculty members of the University of Alabama in Birmingham Schools of Medicine and Dentistry for the pursuit of clinical investigation. The facilities and staff permit the meticulous control of experimental conditions, allow close observation and accurate monitoring of biologic phenomena, and insure the precise measurement of biochemical and physiological events which occur in patients and normal volunteers participating in the research activities. Major research projects are related to hypertension, thyroid hormone metabolism, disorders of immune mechanisms, physiology of red blood cells, diabetes, renal, and hepatic diseases, and the natural history and therapy of herpesvirus, and chronic hepatitis B virus infections.